Adams Papers
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Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 17 June 1801

Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn

Philadelphia 17th: June 1801.

Dear Sir.

Your favors of the 7th: & 31st: of March & 3d: of April, are yet unacknowledged, though they have been some time received. No vessel has sailed directly for your port, since I last wrote; until the ship Benjamin, on board of which I sent you a packet of the port folio. I also sent a packet for my Brother, but I apprehend he will have left Berlin before it can arrive, though possibly he may not have embarked for home.1

The Spectateur & another pamphlet have likewise been received from you; but this pamphlet addressed by my brother to my father, & enclosed by you to me, was unfortunately put on board a ship, bound to NewYork, though said, on the cover, to be sent by the Pennsylvania, for this place; coming by post to me, it inflamed my postage bill, rather more than a poor attorney can bear without grumbling; so I charge you to be more careful, in future, how you enclose pamphlets to me, which are addressed to another person. Congress, conferred the privilege of franking, upon John Adams, but they were not so generous to his son.2

I thank you for all your political intelligence. Poor, free, imperial Hamburg! How art thou bandied about, like a football, kicked, cuff’d & squeezed, until thou hast scarce breath enough left to sigh a complaint, at thy indignities! Thou has been convicted, at sundry times & in divers manners of being rich, and because thou wouldst not fight, thou fain must pay. I hate to see the weak trodden under foot, but since the abrogation of the law of Nations, this has been a trick of the times. I think however, that these little, paltry, insignificant, trading towns, which are mock-dignified by the epithet of free & imperial Cities, are such a burlesque on sovereignty, that I care little who takes them under protection, provided it be a power competent to the service.3

I presume you get newspapers from this place, and therefore I need not tell you any thing about the heinous sins of our political rulers. They are chronicled every day in the vehicles of scandal, otherwise called free presses. There is sore complaint at removals from Office, and there is unceasing clamor that so few removals are made. The sovereign, begins to bellow, about the loaves & fishes, which are the very quintescence of Republicanism. The Alpha & Omega of democracy. “We have yet gained little,” say the Republicans, if any federal officer be continued in employ, and it is beginning to transpire, that the triumph of principle, in the late struggle of parties, is nothing more than the triumph of the unprincipled office-seekers of the Country.4

We hear & read every day, that our fathers fought & bled for the sake of establishing a free & independent republic— Well, we had flattered ourselves, (till lately, when we have been bettered informed) that we had been living under a republican form of government, & some have been foolish enough to think, that the Country has prospered under the administration of the two first Presidents; but we are now assured, by all the democratic prints, that the Independence, that which was declared in 1776. was never established till the 4th: March 1801.5

My dear Sir, you seem to retain a respect for the good sense of my Countrymen & are willing to believe, that fair argument & free discussion, will yet avail, in preserving our political institutions. I advise you to banish this impression, as too destitute of foundation, for if a people were ever befooled & besotted with intemperate zeal for any thing, my Countrymen certainly are, for the name of Republicanism. But enough. I ought, like Noah’s sons to step back & cover the nakedness of a parent.

I believe “a political intolerance, as despotic as wicked,” is about to commence. Hitherto we have seen but little of it, though I have looked for it, more than other’s, who have more faith than I had in smooth words. You I think may calculate upon being removed, provided any body should want to be Consul at Hamburg.6

Your old friend Clinton has again got into the saddle upon the back of NewYork. The good beast called the sovereign, had always a propensity to be ridden by this jockey, and only threw him out of his seat, by stumbling over Jay.

Our NewYork & Boston friends are well. The enclosed half Centinel will afford you some reading—7

With great esteem I am, dear Sir, / your friend & hble Servt:

Thomas B Adams8

RC (OCHP:Joseph Pitcairn Letters); addressed: “Joseph Pitcairn Esqr: / Consul of the United States / Hamburg”; endorsed: “Philadelphia 17 June / 1801 / Thomas Adams / Rd 1 Ocr / Acd 2 Der”; notation by TBA: “Ship Benjamin.”

1Pitcairn’s letters to TBA have not been found. TBA sent the packets to Pitcairn and JQA on the ship Benjamin, Capt. Richard Copeland Beale, which departed Philadelphia for Hamburg on 18 June. TBA’s most recent letters to Pitcairn and JQA were of 27 March and 8 June, respectively, both above (vol. 11:316; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 6, 18 June).

2The enclosures have not been found. The first was probably an issue of Le spectateur du nord, journal politique, littéraire et moral, which Pitcairn had regularly sent to JA since 1798. The second was likely Jean André de Luc’s pamphlet Bacon tel qu’il est, for which see JQA to TBA, 28 March 1801, and note 1, above. Both were probably carried by the ship Ann, Capt. Lee, which departed Hamburg on 16 April and arrived in New York on 20 May. Pitcairn also probably forwarded JQA’s 10 March letter to AA and 4 April letter to TBA, both above. The ship Pennsylvania, Capt. Peter Yorke, departed Hamburg on 19 April and arrived in Philadelphia on 28 May (vol. 13:112; Pitcairn to JQA, 17, 31 March, both Adams Papers; JQA to Pitcairn, 28 March, OCHP:Joseph Pitcairn Letters; New York Daily Advertiser, 20 May; Philadelphia Gazette, 28 May, 6 June).

3For the Danish occupation of Hamburg, see JQA to TBA, 28 March, and note 5, above.

4Here and below, TBA quoted Thomas Jefferson’s 4 March inaugural address, for which see AA to TBA, 22 March, and note 3, above, repeating Jefferson’s statement that “we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance.” TBA was describing a debate in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 18 May, which declared that the people expressed a “universal disgust” of JA’s policies when they elected Jefferson and that the new president “was therefore perfectly correct in not commissioning those officers who were so unjustifiably nominated by Mr. Adams.” The Philadelphia Gazette responded later the same day, citing the inaugural line quoted by TBA and countering: “Mr. Adams certainly cannot be accused of nominating men, or pursuing measures contrary to the will of the majority. If Mr. Jefferson chuses to withhold commissions from those appointed by the late President, he can and will; yet such conduct would certainly merit and receive, the disapprobation of most people” (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 33:149).

5TBA was referring to an essay in the Boston Constitutional Telegraphe, 4 March, which claimed that with the election of Jefferson “the Revolution of 1776 is now, and for the first time arrived at its completion.” George Washington had been “deceived by the insidious arts of the flatterers who surrounded him,” the newspaper stated, and JA’s “partizans thought to govern the country themselves, by making him their tool.” The essay concluded that the new administration’s removal of laws unfairly targeting citizens and the press meant that “the reign of terror and corrupt government is at an end.”

6On 1 Feb. 1802 Jefferson nominated John Murray Forbes as U.S. consul at Hamburg, and the Senate confirmed the nomination three days later. Despite losing his post, Pitcairn remained in Hamburg until 1815 (U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour. description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., 1789– . description ends , 7th Cong., 1st sess., p. 406–407; Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, “Hard Times: The Economic Activities of American Consuls on the North Sea Coast under the Continental System,” transl. Emily Richards, German Historical Institute London Bulletin, 40:7 [Nov. 2018]).

7Enclosure not found.

8TBA wrote again to Pitcairn on 11 July 1801 (OCHP:Joseph Pitcairn Letters), thanking him for forwarding JQA’s letters and packages and reporting on the reception of the Port Folio in the United States. The July letter is the final extant between TBA and Pitcairn.

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